Page:Wilson - Merton of the Movies (1922).djvu/156

 jailed! He found his watch on the floor beside the bunk. Seven o'clock. He was safe. He could dress at leisure, and presently be an early-arriving actor on the Holden lot. He wondered how soon he could get food at the cafeteria. Sleeping in this mountain cabin had cursed him with a ravenous appetite, as if he had indeed been far off in the keen air of the North Woods.

He crept from the warm blankets, and from under the straw mattress—in which one of the miners had hidden the pouch of nuggets—he took his newly pressed trousers. Upon a low bench across the room was a battered tin washbasin, a bucket of water brought by the little girl from the spring, and a bar of yellow soap. He made a quick toilet, and at seven-thirty, a good hour before the lot would wake up, he was dressed and at the door.

It might be chancy, opening that door; so he peered through a narrow crack at first, listening intently. He could hear nothing and no one was in sight. He pushed the latch-string through its hole, then opened the door enough to emit his slender shape.

A moment later, ten feet from the closed door, he stood at ease, scanning the log cabin as one who, passing by, had been attracted by its quaint architecture. Then glancing in both directions to be again sure that he was unobserved, he walked away from his new home.

He did not slink furtively. He took the middle of the street and there was a bit of swagger to his gait. He felt rather set up about this adventure. He reached what might have been called the lot's civic centre and cast a patronizing eye along the ends of the big stages and the long, low dressing-room building across from them. Before the open door of the warehouse he paused to watch a truck being loaded with handsome furniture—a drawing room was evidently to be set on one of the stages. Rare rugs and beautiful chairs and tables were carefully brought out. He had rather a superintending air as he watched this process. He might have been taken for the owner of these costly things, watch-